Metal Machine Muzak

My left foot

Dragging again

Back in the wailing rig again

The notorious potholes of Tacoma

Rattling out the dead again

The Mask straps you down tight

Cuts off your oxygen

They tell you not to move

How do you breathe without moving?

How do you breathe without oxygen?

Nobody has an answer

They all leave the room

Music plays when the big metal plates 

Start spinning around your skull

Staying Alive - Bee Gees.  I shit you not

I endure it.

Next song starts, faintly familiar in the distance

But panic sets in when I hear Fripp's guitar build-up

I fucking know how long "Heroes" is.

Six more minutes of radiation

I can't do it

They have to pull me out

We'll try Ativan tomorrow

We've only just begun to live

sings the dead drummer girl

And I'm not feeling the Ativan

Not even a little bit

I feel the phlegm pooling in my throat

Which is being strangled by the wax 

They long to be, close to you

I struggle, I move

They pull me out again

Tomorrow we'll try an Ativan/Benadryl cocktail

I'll put in a request for Metal Machine Music

And hope for the best

-KrossD (4/1/2025)

Inventory

There are stacks of accumulated regret
Pushed against the garage wall
Many of them already gessoed over
In ever fleeting bursts of optimism
It’s not the failures that haunt me
But the ones that I talked myself out of taking to harvest
I haven’t opened a tube since before the incident
The sketchbooks are stored out of reach
I can’t be trusted on a ladder
I can see the jars of brushes from my convalescent chair

Itching again
Early morning piano concertos are lovely
Until I start doing the math
I stare at the Sloane painting 

Where the clock is irredeemably janky
It’s funny
In the hospital they neuro-tested me to draw a clockface that read 20 to 11
I failed miserably then wept like a child
Maybe I was never able to do it
And why would it matter?

This mad brute yearning for immortality
Stabbing pigments into taut canvas
Falling on his face time and again
Ultimately to be erased by a fucking cluster
Whose burden will it be then?
These stacks

These desperate stabs at relevance
My foggy brain still entertains every horrible idea
As potential brilliance

What if?
For my last creative act

I crudely painted cheeseburgers
On each of these delusions
Then you will know the truth
About how truly shallow I am
What a surface level
Bargain basement 

American Lad I’ve always been

                                     -KrossD (3/10/2025)

Rest

 

It’s in the blood they say

This will keep it from boiling over

Get some rest, stick out your tongue

I’ll be back in 4 hours with the anti-inflammation jab

When was your last bowel movement?

Your oxygen is low

Breathe through your nose, not your mouth

We can’t operate today

There was a fire in the heater room. Code Red.

All the things you love will kill you

Get some sleep

Wake up

We need to flush your IV

Do you know where you are

And why you’re here?

Doc wants to put compression cuffs on your legs

To keep the blood from clotting

You look tired

Are you tired?

Stage 4. Incurable.

Get some rest.

It’s the best thing for you.

   -KrossD (3/8/2025)

Insomnia

 

There’s a false siren at 2 am

It blares hot and white, metallic

As the bladder warms

I imagine the mass of cells

Speaking about me in code

 

I imagine them bragging

About how easy this will be for them

Once they’ve had their fun

To send one last jolting bellow

At 2 am,  just before my sundown

 

They’ll untie my earthly binds

Pause a beat as I begin to float

Then they’ll scatter like mites,

Cackling into the Douglas Firs

 

My eyes wide open for whatever hell

The heavens have in store

-KrossD (3/7/2025)